[1] Extemporaneous talk delivered by retired Chief Justice ARTEMIO V. PANGANIBAN during the “Scholars’ Night and Family Dinner” held on June 5, 2024, at the Turf Room of the Manila Polo Club in Makati City.
Good evening my dear family – by blood, by affinity and by close, very close friendship.
Let there be no mistake. I am proud of all my 10 grandchildren. All of them are outstanding and adorable. I love them all. But tonight is especially reserved to recognize, praise, and celebrate the simultaneous but separate grants of masteral scholarships by top schools in the United States to three of them, Andrea P. Manalac, University of Michigan, Master of Business Administration (MBA), Rafa P. Yaptangco, Fordham University, MBA, and Victoria P. Hannett, University of Pennsylvania, Master of Biotechnology.
I wrote about them in my column in the Inquirer last Monday, June 3. Because of this publication, I received hundreds of congratulatory emails, texts, verbal felicitations, and personal handshakes. I never felt so accomplished in my life; truly, I felt the same personal and spiritual elevation when I was named, without my application, as a justice of the highest court of the land, and later as the chief justice of the Philippines.
The great honor brought by the three scholars is not mine alone. I share it with all of you my dear relatives. Let me introduce our honorees one by one, alphabetically by their first name, and then I will hand them my special gift, and finally, I will ask each of them to respond.
FIRST, LET ME TALK ABOUT ANDREA. A natural artist, she began singing at age three and hasn’t stopped crooning with her melodious voice. Her original lists consisted of Barney and Disney songs. Today, with her mom, she is most known to sing “Till” during family events. Hehehe, this song happens to be the theme song of both her paternal and maternal grandparents. Yes, “Till” is the forever song of Tong and Linda, as well as of Leni and me. Every time she belts that song, tears of joy and love flow from our eyes.
Andrea’s love for musicals and singing were nurtured by her school in Hoboken, New Jersey, where, at five, she was given lead singer roles. To this day, Andrea loves watching musicals. In fact, she has seen “Hamilton” five times in three countries, but “Ageless Passion” remains her favorite. Hahaha! A few months ago, she convinced her parents to bring her to Tokyo to enable her to watch and scream during the peerless concerts of Taylor Swift, not just once, but twice, in two successive days in the Japanese capital.
Andrea is the Panganiban Disney expert. She rode 36 out of the 47 Walt Disney World attractions continuously from 8:00 AM until 1:00 AM the next day. In 12 months between 2011 and 2012, she visited the Disney Parks in Hongkong, Tokyo, Paris, Los Angeles, and Orlando. Last December, she led the Panganiban Family on a Disneyland tour in LA, California, alongside the Official Disney VIP Tour Guide.
From high school to college, she was (like her Lolo… ehem) very active in extra-curricular activities that led her to pursue a career in human capital development. At Shopee, she started as a recruiter and was quickly promoted within a year of working. She was an HR business partner prior to working at Price Waterhouse Coopers as a senior consultant for workforce transformation.
Though offered scholarships by several schools, she eagerly chose the University of Michigan, following her mom’s footsteps. She is excited to learn more about different industries and to develop her leadership skills. Indeed, her Mama Lin, Papa Tong, Lolo Art, Lola Leni (from heaven), her parents Noy and Tet are mighty proud of her.
My dear Andrea, please come over and receive this envelop with dollars in cash and check as our token of appreciation for the honor and joy you brought to our family.
RAFA GREW UP IN OUR HOME IN MAKATI. I always thought he was cool and quiet, preferring to stay under the radar. Together with his elder brother Miggy, he used to draw caricatures about me, and the family. I posted them in the walls of our Master’s Bedroom. In the evening, I would look at them with great admiration and awe.
However, after moving to Alabang, his parents Alex and Len (and his Lola Nena) discovered he indeed was quiet but not shy. In fact, when the occasion calls for it, he could be talkative and argumentative. He gladly accepted lead roles at Ridgefield kindergarten. By the time he was at Southridge elementary and high school, he became a great dancer with a natural sense of rhythm and timing. Just before graduating college from Ateneo de Manila in June 2019, he proudly announced: “Dad and Mom, I passed my Filipino final exams! I will graduate as scheduled.”
Rafa held a golf club at age three. And why not? His parents spent lots of time playing golf with him. During the Covid era, his golf handicap improved from 30 to 10 in one year. Today, three years later, he carries a single digit handicap. Just like that. He arrived a few days ago after playing at his friend’s invitation, at the world-famous Pebble Beach Golf Club in California.
Last February 7 to 10, I invited him to be my partner at the Golden Tee Tournament of the Manila Golf. My aim was to become champion in my category of seniors, and to avoid being the last among the hundreds of contenders. He did very well. His drives were so long and powerful that it took me three strokes to even up. However, we could not achieve my aim of being champions because I performed dismally. But thank God, we avoided the embarrassment of being last.
As a young boy, Rafa suffered from pesky tonsilitis that forced him to stay home and confined to his desktop. This unlikely scenario started his life-long romance with gadgets, gaming, and technology, becoming a tech-support to his friends, classmates, teachers, and family. Who said letting a child spend too much time on a computer is bad? It turned out to be Rafa’s competitive advantage.
After college graduation, Rafa worked at Lazada as a user growth analyst; and then at Tik Tok as an e-commerce growth marketing manager. To the delight of Ateneo President Fr. Bobby Yap, he chose to pursue his MBA at the Jesuit bastion in New York, Fordham University that offered him a formidable “dean’s scholarship.”
Rafa, please come over and give a hug to your underperforming golf partner and overaged Lolo.
VICTORIA WAS BORN AND RAISED IN GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT. I came to know her during her visits to the Philippines and during my occasional trips to New York but most especially during our annual family vacations at a country somewhere in the world chosen by her talented mom and aunts.
Victoria was an avid dancer from age two to 17. She attended dance classes every day and lost herself in dance as self-expression. She loves music; rarely does she not have AirPods on her ears. Spotify ranks her as a top 0.1 percent Taylor Swift fan. Little did we know she is also a math and science whiz. She was handpicked to skip 6th grade math, going directly from 5th to 7th grade math. She finished high school with high honors and graduated from Georgetown University two weeks ago with a Bachelor of Science in Neurobiology (the study of the brain and the nervous system).
Fascinated by the brain, Victoria decided to pursue a masters in biotechnology, which, I am told is the use of biology to develop products and methods to improve human health and society. She is focused on drug discovery, the creation of new treatments and delivery systems on neurodisorders, and the improvement of patients’ quality of life. Examples of neurodisorders that she hopes to treat are migraine (which her mom suffers from), stroke (the cause of death of both her paternal grandparents), dementia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Curious about biotechnology, I spoke lengthily with Victoria. After her masters in biotechnology, she wants to pursue a PhD on the brain, and its physical, cellular, and spiritual dimensions. Specifically, I asked her to hasten her discovery of a cure for dementia because I may need it five years from now when I may start losing my memory. She promised to find a cure by the time I turn 92 so I can retain my ability to convene you, our extended family, and to celebrate her discovery of a cure for dementia.
Victoria applied to seven graduate programs in six top US universities. She was not only accepted in all but also offered scholarships in five of them, namely, two programs at Georgetown, one each at Brown University, New York University, American University, and University of Pennsylvania! Which of them do you think she chose? Yes, ivy league UPenn, the alma matter of her uncle Noy. How blessed is she to have the privilege of picking one diamond among five equally valuable diamonds.
To borrow Taylor Swift’s words, Victoria had champagne problems! Mabuhay!
My dear Victoria, please come over and hug your ancient admirer, and receive your gift.
Dear relatives and close friends, while we congratulate our three lovable scholars, let us not forget to felicitate also the persons who by their love and perspiration created them in this wonderful world. I am of course, referring to the proud parents who are here tonight, Len and Alex, Celine, Tet and Noy. Let us give them a big hand.
By way of footnote, may I just add that, with due respect to Alex and Noy and to myself too, I think our scholars inherited their talent more from their maternal line than from their paternal line. Their mothers, Len, Celine and Tet all have college degrees from the elite schools here, graduate degrees from top universities in the US, and their Lola Leni had a full scholarship from the Central Bank of the Philippines to study, and finish with honors, her MBA at the Asian Institute of Management. Dear relatives, do you agree that our three scholars inherited their academic genes from the moms and grand moms? I didn’t hear your answer. Do you agree?
In contrast, look at poor me, no elite Philippine school, no graduate degree, no US education, nada, not even a clapping of hands.
Tonight, I am so overwhelmed with joy that I should no longer prolong this talk. However, I will be remiss in my duties as grandfather and pater de familia if I do not give a closing message to all of you, but especially to our three scholars. My message is short and simple. No pain, no gain. No sacrifice, no victory. No perspiration, no exaltation. Let me illustrate with little stories.
Many of you already know that I grew up impoverished and deprived. I had to hawk newspapers and shine shoes when I was in grade school and high school and sell textbooks to my classmates in college to enable me to study and to help my poor family. What you don’t know is that – when I was a law student – my late brother Nardo and I literally and actually built with our own hands and with the help of a master carpenter – (and Frankie Villasenor, a half-brother of my mother who was also orphaned early in life and who grew up with us) – a two-story house in Marulas, Polo, Bulacan, now known as Valenzuela City. There, I learned how to prepare architectural plans for a house, build it slowly from scratch for several months, sleep in the construction site in a small tent to shield us from rains and mosquitos and to discourage robbers from stealing our construction materials and tools. I learned how to use lumber and plywood efficiently so their standard measurements would fit in the house without any waste. I learned how to be a carpenter, plumber, electrician, cement mixer, concrete hollow block maker and a peon or common laborer. These skills I carry even now. Early in my hard-scrabble life. I learned the value of hard work and steely determination to succeed.
Now, let us listen to the story of Jensen Huang, the founder, president, and CEO of Nvidia, the sensation of the New York Stock Exchange that grew its business meteorically because of AI and AGI. His very poor parents migrated from Taiwan to the US. Not being properly educated, they had to endure hard manual labor to survive in very competitive America. Though dirt poor, he climbed his way to college full of pain and suffering due not only to economic want but also to seething prejudice against Chinese immigrants. Nonetheless, through hard work and sheer determination, he succeeded in starting Nvidia in 1993, in the same way that Bill Gates built Microsoft and Steve Jobs established Apple. According to Forbes, his net worth as of June 4, 2024 is over US$ 100 billion and rising fast. When he delivered a recent speech at Stanford University, he had a simple message, which I paraphrase: “… I succeeded because of the pain and suffering I had to endure when I was young and was starting my career in technology. So, my message to you, the graduating class of Stanford, is simple: to succeed, you must endure pain and suffering first.”
The same lowly and painful start characterized the rise to power of local billionaire Lance Gokongwei. After graduating summa cum laude from the Wharton Business School, he began his career by being a management trainee, which basically meant “going out and selling Jack and Jill snacks to supermarkets, groceries and sari-sari stores.” Though he was the heir-apparent of his father’s multiple businesses, he was not given any privileges; he suffered pain and sometimes embarrassment at his 24/7 work at the bottom of the business pyramid.
When his father died in 2019, he inherited a conglomerate worth over $20 billion according to Forbes. Because of his hands-on training and his sacrifice to start so lowly in his father’s businesses and to climb slowly to the top, he was ready to assume the leadership of his conglomerate at age 53.
And so too is the teaching of our Lord Jesus, which I also paraphrase, “He who is worthy of me must take up his cross and follow me. He who does not undergo pain and sacrifice because of me is not worthy of me.” And as we all know, our Lord sacrificed his earthly life on the cross to save mankind from the horrors of hell.
Please note that in the beginning, I referred to pain and suffering as the keys to success, and later on when I reached our Lord Jesus Christ, I shifted to pain and sacrifice. It is because we, as Christians, believe that when suffering is undergone with love, it becomes sacrifice. It is the pain endured by a mother at giving birth to a child, and the same suffering we endure when we burn the midnight oil to hurdle the next day’s exam. Suffering becomes sacrifice because we willingly undergo it with love and with a triumphal purpose.
May I humbly say that I endured pain and sacrifice when I was young. So did novo dollar billionaire Jensen Huang, Philippine billionaire Lance Gokongwei, and our Lord Jesus Christ. My dear scholars, your grant of scholarships is just the beginning. Please be ready to undergo pain and sacrifice on your way to fulfilling your dreams for your education, your career, our family, and our God.
Let me end by congratulating again and again our three amazing scholars. Fascinating indeed that all of them applied merely for admission but were offered multiple scholarships. My Leni joins me from heaven in thanking our Lord for His grant of these incalculable blessings to our family. Maraming salamat po.
The Personal Website of Retired Chief Justice Panganiban 